WWALS Watershed Coalition advocates for conservation and stewardship of the Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, Little, Santa Fe, and Suwannee River watersheds in south Georgia and north Florida through education, awareness, environmental monitoring, and citizen activities.

Comment by this Monday, April 13, 2020, if you don’t want any of these creeks, rivers, or the Okefenokee Swamp affected by this strip mine, or the Floridan Aquifer, in Georgia or in Florida.

The Twin Pines Minerals strip mine site drains west from Trail Ridge into the River Styx, into the Okefenokee Swamp, and to the St. Marys River, which becomes the border between Georgia and Florida.
On the east, it drains into Boone Creek and into the St. Marys River.
If it affects the Swamp, it will affect the Suwannee River, which runs through Georgia and Florida to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Rule the Corps is following for comments says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can require any other affected state to comment.
So you can ask EPA to ask Florida to comment.
Here is our request for that.
Here’s a simple version you can use:

[Your Name or Your Organization Name]
requests the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pursuant to 33 CFR § 325.2, (b),
regarding permit application SAS-2018-0054 to determine that
the mining activities of the subject Application may affect the
quality of the waters of the state of Florida and to notify the
state of Florida, the district engineer, and the applicant that
Florida ‘has 60 days from receipt of EPA’s notice to determine
if the proposed discharge will affect the quality of its waters so
as to violate any water quality requirement in such state, to notify
EPA and the district engineer in writing of its objection to permit
issuance, and to request a public hearing.’

The inset map is from Figure 66 in the TPM application.
TPM didn’t label the waterways, but that’s the River Styx where it says MSW-1, and Boone Creek where it says MSW-4.
Both lead to the St. Marys River, which becomes the Georgia-Florida state line. The River Styx joins the St. Marys in the Okefenokee Swamp, which is the headwaters of the Suwannee River.

Underneath all these creeks and rivers is the Floridan Aquifer, which interchanges water with the Okefenokee Swamp.
You don’t want that strip mine polluting the Aquifer, which is our principal source of water for drinking, industry, agriculture, do you?

Click on any of the above maps to get a bigger version.
There are also copies of the maps on facebook.

“The Savannah District will hold a virtual Public Meeting for
the Twin Pines project on May 13, 2020 from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM EDT.
The meeting will consist of a formal presentation followed by a
question and answer session. The meeting will be recorded and
published to the Savannah District public website. To allow time for
the public to submit questions and RSVP to the public meeting, as
well as comment on any information presented at the meeting,
additional public comments will be accepted and the original public
notice will remain open until May 28, 2020, 15 days after the
virtual public meeting.”

While you are at home
because of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19),
you have a great opportunity to write a comment, and to
write to your elected officials.
You can also post your comments on social media, as op-eds, etc.

You can ask the Corps and other elected and appointed officials to
deny the application, or to require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
to consider wider areas the mine may affect, especially the entire Okefenokee Swamp, the Suwannee and St Marys Rivers, and the rest of Trail Ridge in Georgia.
You can ask for the EIS to include other mines relevant to this one,
especially the four Chemours titanium strip mines in north Florida for which TPM,
along with Chemours, is under a Florida Consent Order for a range of violations.
You may want to ask for inclusion of the existing phosphate mine in Hamilton County, Florida, next to the Suwannee River, as well as the one proposed in Union and Bradford Counties, Florida, next to the New and Santa Fe Rivers, tributaries of the Suwannee.
All those mines affect the Floridan Aquifer, which is the main source of water for drinking, agriculture, and industry for everyone in south Georgia and north Florida.

To comment, or to request a public hearing, you can write to
Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District,
Attention: Ms. Holly Ross, 1104 North Westover Boulevard, Suite 9, Albany, Georgia, 31707,
or by email to
CESAS-SpecialProjects@usace.army.mil
or
holly.a.ross@usace.army.mil.
In your comments please refer to:
Applicant: Twin Pines Minerals, LLC, Application Number: SAS-2018-00554.

For the requested state permit regarding Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, you can send a comment or request for public hearing to
Stephen Wiedl, Wetlands Unit, stephen.wiedl@dnr.ga.gov
Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division, Water Protection Branch, 7 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30334.

The public announcement says:
“The applicant may also require assent from the State of Georgia,
which may be in the form of a license, easement, lease, permit, or other
appropriate instrument.”

You can write to your Georgia state representative or senator
or governor or lieutenant governor and ask them to refuse any such instrument.
To find your legislator you can type in your ZIP code here:
http://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/

You can also write to your U.S. Representative or Senator and ask them to urge the Corps
to reject this mine or at least require an EIS, like Rep. Al Lawson (FL-05) already did.

You can also write to the Georgia DNR board, asking them to refuse any such instrument.
Georgia Board of Natural Resources
2 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, SE, Suite 1252, Atlanta, GA 30334

We request EPA to determine, according to 33 CFR § 325.2(b),
whether the mining activities of the applicant may affect the
quality of the waters of the state of Florida and to notify the
state of Florida, the district engineer, and the applicant that
Florida therefore “has 60 days from receipt of EPA's notice to
determine if the proposed discharge will affect the quality of its
waters so as to violate any water quality requirement in such state,
to notify EPA and the district engineer in writing of its objection
to permit issuance, and to request a public hearing.”

To submit a letter to the editor of the Charlton County Herald,
you can email editor@charltonherald.com.
Or write to your local newspaper.
You can also contact radio, TV, and of course post on social media.